Can't sleep, thinking too much.

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    Sleep Thinking
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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the challenges of falling asleep due to racing thoughts and various strategies participants use to manage their sleep difficulties. It touches on personal experiences, potential causes like anxiety, and different techniques for promoting sleep, including lifestyle changes and mental exercises.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express frustration with their inability to sleep due to an active mind, noting that they often do not remember their thoughts in the morning.
  • One participant suggests that caffeine consumption, particularly after 10:00 am, can significantly affect sleep quality.
  • Another participant proposes that anxiety may contribute to sleeplessness, indicating that the brain's chemistry can lead to increased nighttime activity and thought processes.
  • Several participants share techniques for managing racing thoughts, such as telling themselves "No talking" or using visual distractions to help quiet the mind.
  • Reading before bed is mentioned as a helpful practice by multiple participants, with some emphasizing the importance of choosing a book that is engaging but not overly captivating.
  • Some participants note that having a regular sleep schedule can aid in falling asleep more easily, while others indicate that their irregular schedules contribute to their sleep issues.
  • Meditation and breathing exercises are suggested by one participant as effective methods for calming the mind and facilitating sleep.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally share similar experiences regarding difficulty sleeping due to racing thoughts, but there is no consensus on the underlying causes or the most effective solutions. Multiple competing views and techniques are presented without a clear agreement on which is superior.

Contextual Notes

Some participants mention the influence of external factors such as stress from deadlines or excessive screen time on their sleep patterns. There is also a recognition that individual responses to caffeine and sleep routines may vary significantly.

Who May Find This Useful

Individuals experiencing difficulty falling asleep due to racing thoughts, those interested in exploring various sleep strategies, and anyone looking for shared experiences related to sleep challenges may find this discussion relevant.

  • #31
Can't give you any advice here, you have to eliminate as many things as possible to find the root cause.

A possible cause of sleeplessness is anxiety or fast thoughts, just these two symptoms alone can be linked to a number of things so its hard for us to suggest a cause for your sleeplessness. With that said, it is best you seek a professional. Personally, I used to take hours to sleep at times. I tried a lot of things but they didn't work. It ended up being from bipolar disorder (I was recently diagnosed to my surprise). I now sleep much much quicker since I have started medication (lithium) - and I'm glad I did.
 
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  • #32
Evo said:
It is well known that Jung is considered a crackpot.
After glossing through Liber Novus for the first time my opinion about everything Jung wrote changed dramatically, but I always thought it was all a bit over-wrought. He went way off the deep end during the period that book was... written. It did, however, keep me up for hours. Surprised I didn't have nightmares.
 
  • #33
I find that when I go to bed it normally takes me an hour to go to sleep, but if I put an audiobook on the computer and tell it to turn itself off after an hour I don't even get to hear 15 minutes of the story before I'm gone. Maybe if you can find something like that to focus your thoughts you'll do better.

Or try learning to mediate, because it's all about keeping out thoughts and it helps with concentration as well as insomnia. It's soooooooo hard though, I can't keep from thinking.
 

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